CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

When I get out of school, Katherine is waiting across the road.

"You win," she tells me as I approach the car. "Get in. We're going to the farm."

The clouds have come over dark this afternoon and threaten to pour. I can feel a storm brewing in the air, shaking the trees and tossing up the leaves. The temperature has dropped at least five degrees.

We make a quick stop at the house before heading off. It's a long drive. An hour to get out of the city. Another hour to reach the old farm. The scenery shifts as we go – from bustling highways, to roads cut through hills, to bridges over valleys and rivers. Soon it starts to smooth out. The trees grow sparse and the landscape transforms into a rolling blanket of golden grass. Memories from my childhood rise up and pool at the front of my mind: lying in the grass and watching the clouds, driving into town for groceries and – occasionally – gelato, sitting on the porch and scanning the road, waiting for visitors that rarely come.

Katherine turns off the highway and navigates us through a small town before we break back out into pure countryside. Half an hour later we turn onto a dirt road that leads through a grove of trees. When we emerge from within their shadows, I realise that I recognise my surroundings; the particular pattern of hills on the landscape aligns with my memories and produces a spark of nostalgia.

"If memory serves," I say, "the farmhouse should be just beyond this hill."

"Are you sure?"

I look sideways at Katherine, furrowing my brows. "Positive." It doesn't sound as confident as it should.

Katherine slows down as we drive up to the hill. Beyond it there's a large expanse of flat land, pockmarked with small ponds. But there's no fencing. And certainly no house.

"I don't – I don't understand."

Katherine pulls off to the side of the road and stops the car. "Now you understand my problem. I remember it being here. I know it was here. But it's not."

I can't stop shaking my head. "No. No. It's meant to be here."

Katherine just stares out the window, forehead furrowed.

We search for a few more hours, driving around local towns, taking random roads until we hit dead ends, sweeping the surrounding countryside for our farmhouse – which seems to be in the midst of a vanishing act. Eventually the sun sets and the light dims to a deep blue. The world takes on a mystical, almost dreamlike quality as we finally stop our search and pull over.

"It's getting late," Katherine says. "There's a small motel in the last town we passed through. We should grab some dinner, take a rest. We can start up again in the morning."

I want to say that it's pointless – the farmhouse is gone. But I can't bring myself to do it. Admitting that we failed to find the stone means admitting that I may never see Caden and Sarah again. And the very thought makes me sick.

I don't say a word as Katherine turns the car around and brings us back the way we came. It's a half-hour drive and by the time we see signs of civilisation, the sky is black. The town is quite sizeable – as far as country towns go – with a petrol station, a pub, a convenience stores and a smattering of inelegant houses. The motel rests on the very edge of town. It's a two-story building of ten rooms sitting on a plot of dusty gravel. A red neon sign out front flashes Hillside Motel and beneath it, Vacancy. There's a small reception at one end, the window glowing orange with artificial light. Everywhere else is dark.

Katherine pulls up onto the gravel and parks out front. "Wait here, I'll get us a room." She steps out into the night, the car door closing behind her with a thud. And then there's just quiet.

-:-:-:-:-

Late at night, I'm woken for the third time by my own mind. I seem to be caught in a loop of nightmares, each one different save for the ending: Caden, his face bloodied and beaten, reaching towards me like a zombie, unfurling his hand to reveal a stone soaked in sticky scarlet blood, whispering, "Why didn't you save me?"

I've gotten to the point where I can't close my eyes again. Not without that image rushing forth, polluting the back of my eyelids, causing my heart to hammer in my chest. I have to face the facts: I won't be sleeping again tonight.

Quietly, so that I don't disturb Katherine sleeping on the other side of the box-small motel room, I wrap myself in a jumper and exit through the door. The night is clear and ice-sharp, the smell of wet grass and dirt hanging in the air. I lean against the second-floor railing and stare out at the desolate landscape, lit only by the stars, millions of them – and brighter than any I've ever seen. I stare for so long that I almost get lost in them, that they burn onto my retina. Then the constellations start to turn against me, patterns forming that chill me to my bones. They are just stars; until they aren't. Until every constellation looks like someone screaming, like someone dying, like a murder-in-progress, full of knives and guns and wicked smiles.

I blink and the patterns are lost. They are just stars.

But that's not entirely true. While I've been staring, a low star has grown brighter. Bigger. It pulses in tune with my heartbeat as it grows. Then, at the same moment as I decide it definitely can't be a star, it zooms over to the right, meanders through the dark, dances across the sky. It's not getting bigger, it's getting closer.

It's not a star, it's a spirit.

Before I know it, it's swirling just before me, chilling the already icy darkness. It hovers there for a few moments, the two of us watching each other. Then it glides over to my left, pauses a moment at the top of the stairwell and disappears downstairs.

Inexplicably I follow it, drawn onwards by something I can't name. Down the stairs, out onto the silent first floor, feet treading on the concrete pathway. I find the spirit waiting just beyond the edge of the building, it's pulsing almost in sync with the flickering patio light above it. The display is almost too supernatural, too out-of-this-world to perceive without an overwhelming feeling of terror, one that harkens back to humanities early beginnings, when we spent longs nights fearing the unknown predators who lurked in the dark.

I am shaking now, more from the fear than from the deathly cold air. When I take a cautious step closer, my foot wobbles, shaking my weight off balance. I regain my centre for another step, and another, eyes fixed on the iridescent orb, as transfixed as I am terrified. I must be dreaming. I know I'm not.

The closer I get, the colder the air becomes. I know the stories, the warnings – anyone who gets close to a spirit freezes and dies – but the way it hovers there, unmoving, is like an invitation. The night is thick with the sense of the unknown, and the spirit seems eager to let me satisfy my curiosity, to let me reach out, fingers brushing against white light and–

The spirit jolts backwards, and all at once I realise that I've drawn too near, that I've raised my arm to touch it. Hastily I wrap my arms around my stomach and take a step back. I notice I've walked off the edge of the path and now the gravelly dirt crunches under my feet. When I look back up, the spirit has sprung away into the night, growing smaller and smaller until it once more becomes a star amongst the heavens.

But the night is not over. The coldness which surrounds me feels just as unnatural, if not more so, and I get the strong sense that I am not alone. I spin around in a circle, eyes scanning the darkness, blood pounding in my ears. Every second out here is loud as a thunder clap – is felt and endured as completely as my terror.

Then – movement in the shadows along the side of the motel, a smudge of grey shifting amongst the dark. My body tenses. The smudge moves closer, until I can see the grey indistinct outline of a person, hiding just beyond the reach of the flickering patio light.

"Who are you?" I breathe, my voice trembling and crackly. Without thinking, I take a step back.

They don't reply – at least, not in the way I expect. Instead of speaking, they raise an arm, extending it palm-up into the circle of light. At first, I notice nothing, my eyes directed away from the obvious by the eerie flickering. But then it all becomes apparent: the grey-toned skin and clothing, like they've been dropped into a sepia film; the lack of a shadow as the light hits their arm; and the slight transparency of their person, enough to see through, enough to convince a passer-by that they're human, but to steal the humanity quickly away when one actually looks. I am looking. And all these things add up to one, inescapable conclusion: I am looking at a ghost.

Numbly, I repeat, "Who are you?"

I half expect to receive silence again, but then I hear their voice, deep and only half-real, with an echo-y quality that makes it seem as though they are speaking within my own mind. "It doesn't matter," they are saying, and I recognise the voice as male. It is confusingly familiar. "It doesn't matter."

"Then what do you want?" I ask fearfully, my tone rising on the final word.

"To help."

"I'm sorry?"

For the longest time, the ghost says nothing. The cold air he radiates swings between icy and below freezing, as though he himself is a pendulum, swinging back and forth between two choices. I stand shivering in the night and try to see more of this unknown being, try to see past the dark and to his face. But it's futile. The seconds draw on, become minutes, and as much as I feel I should leave, I don't. I know there is more to be said; I can feel the words like a weight on the air, turning it into a paste which is hard to swallow and even more difficult to breathe.

Finally, the ghost speaks. The words rupture the silence, sounding less like helpful advice for my ears and more the delirious ramblings of a creature far past sane. "The house of the curse is a cursed house," he begins. "Search for the unknowable, and you will know it. Walk far enough into the invisible, and it will become visible. The house of the curse permits only the blood of Michael. And only by blood may the future become."

Then he vanishes.

A/N

Long time, no see!

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. For those of you who aren't a fan of Radish, I'll be updating here on wattpad weekly from now on.

Just a reminder, however, that anything I post on wattpad is a month behind what I'll be posting on Radish (i.e. 4 updates behind). Chapters 34, 35 and 36 are all available now on Radish. Chapter 37 will be going up later today, and will be free in a week. 

Thanks for bearing with me, I've been writing steadily for the past month so with any luck I'll be able to continue doing so until this book is finished. 

Much love,
Shaye